Easter Sunday

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, March 31, 2024

Dear Friends in Jesus –

“Christianity is simply good news. It is the news that something has happened as a result of which the world is a different place."
- NT Wright

God became enfleshed.

Walked among us.

Taught, healed and loved extravagantly.

In the Gospels, the reports of his life, "Jesus doesn't explain why there is suffering, illness, and death in the world. He brings healing and hope. He doesn't allow the problem of evil to be the subject of a seminar. He allows evil to do its worst to him. He exhausts it, drains its power, and emerges with new life."

This is the God, Jesus, worthy of our worship!

SUNDAY’S COMIN’.

In anticipation –

 

Festival Service of the Resurrection with guest trumpeter Katie Banish, a senior trumpet major at the College of Charleston.


Please bring flower clippings for the flowering of the cross.


The adult choir and children’s choir have been hard at work preparing for a combined piece for Easter Sunday. Please bring children early on Sunday morning (9:45 a.m. in the sanctuary) to join the choir rehearsal prior to worship. Please contact Melody, our children’s choir director if you have any questions.

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Source: sermons

Palm Sunday

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

Find upcoming events and announcements here.

SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, March 24, 2024

Dear Friends in Jesus –

“I wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then.”

– Bob Seger, "Against the Wind"


Have you ever wished you didn’t know something? Maybe a friend had confided that they felt their marriage was over, or you saw someone cheating on an exam or on their expense account, or you noticed the signs of an addict in denial.
 
The texts for this Sunday can be Palm or Passion. Do we focus on Jesus entry into Jerusalem - palms waving, coats cast on the road, shouts of Hosanna – Save Us!? Can we celebrate knowing the end of the story? Yes! Because we know that crucifixion isn’t the end of the story. Jesus has already said he is the resurrection and the life. The end of our story is yet to be written, but we know it includes us and Jesus and life!
 
This Sunday the children will process. We will welcome Melody Butcher and Nate Grav into membership here at the Second Church. We will celebrate the fulfillment of ancient scripture and the promise of life in Jesus.
 
Let’s worship together this Sunday. Bring someone you love. Invite someone you’d rather not. Let’s share the joy that is ours –

 

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Source: sermons

Resolute

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, March 17, 2024

Dear Friends in Jesus –

We will continue our "Long Obedience in the Same Direction… in pursuit of a life worth living" series... but this Sunday we’ll see how Jesus, Godself, demonstrates resolve- unwavering obedience.

In the 9th chapter of Luke Jesus is resolute, encounters the inhospitable, accompanied by the immature and is undaunted in his trek to the act of our redeeming and the miracle of new life, not new living, but new life. Join us this Gospel Sunday!

In great anticipation,

 

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Source: sermons

Stickin' with Worship

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, March 10, 2024

Dear Friends in Jesus –

We continue in our "Long Obedience in the Same Direction". We’ve engaged Perseverance, Repentance, and Obedience – seeking to understand how these concepts may work through/with God’s Spirit that we might, through grace, achieve lives worth living.

This Sunday we will worship and we will engage Worship. Is there a right way to worship? Yes, through orthodoxy. (Before anyone gets too excited, let me say that orthodoxy is from two Greek words – ortho meaning right, and doxia, meaning praise.) And in the years of the Reformation, one of the fathers of this denomination and of the Reformation, John Calvin, looked around and realized that there were many groups who would call themselves Christian, so how was one to know? He came up with this: “wherever we find the Word of God surely preached and heard, and the sacraments administered according to the institution of Christ, there, it is not to be doubted, is a church of God."

Join us this Sunday. Together we will worship and Jesus will be glorified. Yes, that’s what we get to do!

 

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Source: sermons

Stickin' with Obedience

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, March 3, 2024

Dear Friends in Jesus –

As I was preparing for this Sunday I ran across this prayer:

“Dear God,
You have called us to love, which sounds easy but is often hard.
You have called us to obedience, which sounds hard but is sometimes easy.
You have called us to obedient love, which sounds like an oxymoron, but really isn’t.
You have called us to loving obedience, which sounds crazy but leads to peace.
So help us, dear God, to love, and help us to obey.
Help us, that is, to look to the needs of others and respond with the compassion we see in (you) Jesus.
Help us to ask whether what we are called to do, choose to do, or want to do is motivated from love.
If it is, give us the power to do it and keep at bay those forces that would hinder us from obeying your command to love one another.
If it is not, prevent us.
It’s that simple, and that difficult. Help us, dear God.
Amen.”
 
This Sunday we continue our pilgrimage to lives worth living, committing to a long obedience in the direction of God’s purpose, in God’s love.

See you Sunday –

 

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Source: sermons

Stickin' with Repentance

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, February 25, 2024

Dear Friends in Christ –

Repentance has been identified as the first word in the Christian life. I’m not sure that I would agree.  I would offer sweet surrender instead, but certainly the New Testament gospel is filled with the mandate.

  • John the Baptist – “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."

  • Jesus’ first preaching was the same – “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

  • Peter concluded his first sermon with “Repent and be baptized.”

  • And in Revelation, the message to the 7th church is “be zealous and repent.”

This Sunday we will continue our pilgrim journey in ‘A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.’ We’ll look at what it means to change course in each moment of our lives to bring us into alignment with the purpose of our creation, an abundant joy filled life in Jesus.

Gospel (Good News) Sunday.

With great joy in being your pastor –

 

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Source: sermons

Stickin' with Perseverance: From Helplessness to Hopefulness

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, February 18, 2024

Guest preacher Rev. Marion Platt delivers a message on Psalm 131 on hope and perseverance as part of the "Stickin' with It" Lenten sermon series.

Pastor Marion is the sixth Executive Director and Pastor of Star Gospel Mission’s 120 year history. When he isn’t serving others, he can be found fishing in a local creek, running long distances in the sun, fussing over his vegetable garden, or quietly listening to jazz music.

 

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Source: sermons

Stickin' With It

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

Find upcoming events and announcements here.

SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, February 11, 2024

Gore Vidal was a prolific American novelist, essayist and provocateur who identified at the beginning of this century a ‘condition’ he articulated as “today’s passion for the immediate and the casual.” One could say that this passion for instantaneous information, access or gratification in a culture that is saturated with hits and bits of contact makes for relationships with each other and with our God a “hit and run” affair that is incapable of depth and richness.

What a state! It’s so much easier for me to observe this in others and in the world around me than to see it in the mirror. I don’t have the time to… what?! You fill in the blank. Care for and love my family? Read scripture? Pray? Or do I? Our time allotted is the same – it’s how we choose to use it that differs.

Eugene Peterson addressed this issue over 25 years ago: “There are some things that don’t change. God doesn’t change: God seeks and saves. And our response as God is revealed in Jesus doesn’t change: we listen and we follow… or we don’t.” Peterson insists that to follow Jesus, to be agents of God’s justice and love, requires what used to be known as apprenticeship. It is by this apprenticeship that we come to know Jesus and that is where faith begins. 

Come this Sunday as we welcome new members Catrina and Adam Murphy, baptize Thomas Noel Mellen, and imagine what it is to be apprenticed to the bearer of the greatest power of the cosmos – the love of Jesus. 

 

Click here to view all Second Presbyterian Church videos. Find upcoming events and announcements here.

Source: sermons